would embrace it at once.

469. I feel that I might not have been; for the Ego consists in my thoughts.
Therefore I, who think, would not have been, if my mother had been killed
before I had life. I am not, then, a necessary being. In the same way I am
not eternal or infinite; but I see plainly that there exists in nature a
necessary Being, eternal and infinite.

470. "Had I seen a miracle," say men, "I should become converted." How can
they be sure they would do a thing of the nature of which they are ignorant?
They imagine that this conversion consists in a worship of God which is like
commerce, and in a communion such as they picture to themselves. True
religion consists in annihilating self before that Universal Being, whom we
have so often provoked, and who can justly destroy us at any time; in
recognising that we can do nothing without Him, and have deserved nothing
from Him but His displeasure. It consists in knowing that there is an
unconquerable opposition between us and God, and that without a mediator
there can be no communion with Him.